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Triangle Factory fire commemoration

The Triangle Factory fire took place on Saturday, March 25, 1911 in lower Manhattan. It left 146 dead—mostly young Jewish and Italian immigrant women. The fire began near closing time, most likely the result of a cigarette tossed into a wastebasket. It was fueled by the piles of highly flammable cotton blouses—known as "shirtwaists"—that the factory produced by the thousands. The flames spread so quickly that all three floors of the factory were soon engulfed.

Grief and anger spilled over from the neighborhoods that were home to most of the Triangle workers. The location of the Triangle Factory, just off Washington Square, meant that the fire was experienced as a New York tragedy, not just a worse-than-usual fire in the tenement district.

The fire occurred on a warm spring day. Many New Yorkers, out for a Saturday stroll, witnessed the disaster. Word of the tragedy spread quickly. The next day, newspapers all over the country printed graphic descriptions of the horrific way in which the factory workers had perished.

In the aftermath of the Triangle fire, public opinion, shifting political allegiances, and an active labor movement resulted in state and federal laws regulating industrial working conditions. A hundred years later, however, with the decline of organized labor and the rise of free market economics, factories that exploit immigrant workers are once again doing business in the U.S.